Environment and Climate Change

The first issue of the Law Connection was concerned with climate change and the Kyoto Accord. Seven years later, we have witnessed increasing worldwide alarm over global warming and are less convinced that the Kyoto Accord could or would address those concerns.

In this updated issue on the topic, we examine the path that countries who signed onto the Accord and those that didn’t have followed and we look at the current Government’s plans to deal with the problems related to climate change. The issue is generally about environmental degradation and the impact it has on all of us, not the least of which the various animal species that share the planet. Just one of the victims of the destruction of its natural habitat, the Spotted Owl, perhaps symbolizes the fate that awaits us all if we don’t do something to reduce human incursions on our natural environment.

The Teaching Resource in this issue is a case study on the Spotted Owl and a logging company that applied for rights to log in the Spotted Owls’ last known habitat.